I've tried standard uline bags but they don't hold up very well. I've tried crystal clear bags but they're so thin they don't last very long and end up ripping when you repeatedly open them. I got some really nice, expensive mylar but they don't have flaps and people keep grabbing them by the center and ripping the side seem. So I have those upside down and made my own lil release tab at the bottom to keep them from falling out.

Get a vacuum seal kit and hermetically seal them. My father in law used one when we when fishing and it goes pretty fast. You get a roll of plastic that is basically a flattened tube and this machine that heats/cuts the plastic on the end. The plastic itself is pretty tough as it's meant to survive abuse in s/o's freezer.

wow! it'd purrrrfect. that booth is solid gold. have yet to do a show, and am probably more apprehensive than ever with displays this good. shit.

lame. worst excuse ever not to do a show. this might end up being too long to read, but the short version is "just go do a show. don't worry about what your booth looks like, let the posters do the talking."

i've done a very small number of gig posters and an even smaller number of art prints, but when debating doing the flatstock austin last year a wise man told me "you should do it." so i did. the booth across from me was an intimidating double booth completely filled wall to wall with posters. tables were stocked with t-shirts, stickers, and tons of other stuff. racks and racks of posters. they had signage, karaoke machines, balloons, and a shit-ton of charisma. that also got them a shit-ton of traffic coming in and looking at their posters. i had like two rows of posters and a small 5" x 50" sign that i had printed with my name on it. on a 4x8 table i had a couple stacks of business cards. it was a minimal aesthetic by default. but i had a fucking great time and i sold some posters. not a lot. but i covered the price of the booth (not really sure of that because at some point i forgot to keep my pocket money separate from my poster money, but for the purpose of this story i'll say i did cover the cost of the booth). the bigger thing that came out of doing a show was getting feedback from people. strangers. not your friends or your mom, but the actual buyers. sure i had people come by, look at my booth, see me make eye-contact, and then would say something like "mmm, these are nice" and then keep walking, but i also got a lot of people that came in and talked about the design of the posters. design discussions that i could barely keep up with. also got to overhear what people thought of the posters. hearing "i would buy it if it didn't have a bands name on it" told me i should probably do more art prints. you can also see and hear which posters people are considering or even debating buying. google analytics can't give you that. i had gone into austin wanting to walk around and look at all the other posters so i could get inspired by them, but without a booth helper i never got to do that...but you know what (and i know this sounds incredibly sappy but fuck it) i got inspired by my own work and some of the positive comments i heard from people coming into my booth. and i also got to hear some weird stories. like the guy who seeing my poster with a helicopter on it told me all about which helicopters are safe and which aren't. and why. it very complicated detail. talk about long stories, that guy has me beat.

will i have they same set up next year? i hope not. i hope to have a bigger/better sign, more posters, etc. it won't be near the lil tuffy level, but the idea is to work my way up to that. sell some posters, build a little scratch and invest more in the booth, stickers, art prints, whatever. but just go do a show don't worry about what other booths looks like.